A Long and Grueling Road
by ezpzlemon
Summary: The torture of Mob. (Mogami arc)


The milk poured shakily while Mob rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He pulled back on his hand before the bowl overflowed, but a few lines of milk still trailed down the side of the jug as result of his sloppy execution. The jug was new—full, heavy. He could barely lift it.

But nevermind that. After sprinkling on a few customary crumbs of cereal, he was ready to go. Mob slurped the bowl down, shrugged on his backpack, and set out for school.

There was a monitor at the gate.

"This is the eighth time you've been late this year."

"Yeah..."

"Hand it over."

Mob reluctantly retrieved a crumpled slip of paper from his coat pocket just to have it snatched away by the monitor's outstretched hand, which then smoothed it out to reveal the words LATE PASS. The monitor took out a pen and signed under a list of names on the pass before presenting it once again to Mob.

"Show this to the student secretary and get to class."

"Yes, sir."

So Mob walked into the building. The secretary was already waiting for him.

"An... eighth offense? This can't be tolerated. What were you thinking?"

"I—"

"The punishment is four weeks detention. Any more tardiness will be grounds for expulsion. And, let's see..." She clattered out something on her keyboard. "Oh, my. Judging by your grades, you'd be out in a second."

He shifted awkwardly on his heels while a bead of sweat welled up on his brow. There was nothing he could think to say.

"What're you still standin' around here for? Take your pass and get to class."

 _Mob_

"Yes, ma'am."

He walked to his fourth hour and stopped outside the door.

He stood.

And stood. His hand rested limply on the handle, arm muscle tensed in anticipation, everything poised and ready—yet nothing would come of it. His heart pounded in his throat. His lower lip trembled. It was impossible.

The bell rang, and the door was thrown open of its own accord, Mob being shoved back to fall flat on his butt. He stared up, dazed.

The students averted their eyes and parted around his fallen form. Tsubomi was the last of the file along with her new boyfriend, Ritsu. She received Mob's gawking stiffly, quickly stepping past him as soon as she saw he was there, and Ritsu threw an arm around her shoulders as they walked down the hall.

 _Mob_

Mob got up, dusted himself off, and made his way to his next class. As soon as he so much as touched the seat of his chair, the teacher marched through the door and began the lecture.

"Today is our dissection finals! I hope you all came prepared, because there'll be no opportunities to make up this segment. After attendance, take your place at the lab stations, and we can begin."

Mob stood quietly at his station: a countertop arranged with a sink, a set of scalpels, and a tray covered by a navy tarp. A stack of paper was passed around the room.

"Alright, you all have an hour to identify the selected organs in the subject. And... go!"

Everyone tore away their tarps.

 _M o b_

It was a cat. Splayed out, plucked bald, disinfected. And all around him, one by one, he could hear the incisions made by his peers, the soft squelching peals of exhaled air, paring into greyed innards, moist but not wet enough.

"Kageyama? Is there a problem?"

The class dissection work all came to halt, everyone swinging their heads to look at him. The quiet was silent, and the noise was thunderous. And the cat turned to look at him too.

"Are you prepared for this test?"

"No," he breathed out. "No."

"Well, do your best."

The teacher hovered behind him, waiting for Mob to put on his gloves and begin. It grew harder to breathe, the pressure of the room was such. He was the pupil of classroom's eye, somehow. He was a squirming pupa under a microscope.

 _C_

 _U_

 _T_

It was everywhere, seeping over the edges of his gloves and running down along the cracks of his fingers. He felt it crammed in underneath his fingernails, mingled with the soft, porous flesh of his nail beds, drawn in his chest and swollen in his hands...!

Mob pulled his hands out of the cat to find them bloated up to twice their original size.

A latex allergy. He had forgotten.

The class recoiled at his disfigurement while the teacher seized him by the wrist and hauled him over to a large pair of scissors, where they snipped along—and into—the soiled tissue of the inflammation, relieving his hands of the gloves. Bright red lacerations raced across the ruddy blobs of his hands.

"Open your mouth," she said, and when he did, she dropped a pill on his tongue. "Swallow."

He did so audibly. From across the room, he could see the rows of cats falling apart and folding outwards, like a dresser losing its drawers.

"You're fine. Just wash your hands for a while."

But somewhere deep down, he knew that wouldn't change anything, that the cat was still in his fingers, even after twenty minutes passed under the tap. Even after his hands deflated. Even after class was over, and the school day was done, and everyone was gone.

 _How long must this take?_

 _She's_ here.

"Heard you freaked out in bio, today. What happened?"

"Ah, I... It just..."

"Woah, listen to him stutter! I think he _likes_ you, Minori!" one of her friends giggled.

"Really? And all this time I thought he was Shi-GAY-o," the other said in a mock whisper.

"So how's about it? Do you like Minori?"

 _Are you really okay with this?_

"M-Minori... Minori's fine..."

"For real, Shigeo? 'Cause I don't feel like you think so. Show me."

Sweat poured down Mob's face. "What do you mean?"

"Hmm, I dunno..." Minori said flippantly, twirling a lock of blond hair idly between her fingers. " What do you like the most about me?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he fruitlessly tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

"...He seriously can't think of anything? How rude."

"Yeah, jerk! Why are you so mean, Shigeo?"

"I..." He felt like crying. "I like your hair."

One of them scoffed, astounded at him. "That's the best you can do?"

"Such a—"

"Guys, guys," Minori threw her hands out in appeasement. "It's fine; after all, we don't know each other too well, do we, Shigeo?"

"No," he said faintly.

"But you'll have to do better if you're gonna mend my hurt feelings. So," She grinned at her cunning. "Kiss me."

Mob froze. "Wha...?"

"You heard me."

Her friends were having conniptions on the sidelines, the pretense of legitimate conversation long gone. "Wow, Minori! How bold!"

Mob's body shrunk into itself. "I—Minori—" he sputtered. "Minori, please."

She stood firmly, impassively, eyebrow cocked.

"I'm waiting."

No way out, no way around. He was cornered.

 _Can you survive in this manner?_

"Phleh!" Minori coughed, wrenching her head to the left and pushing hard on his chest. "I meant on the cheek, you pervert!"

"Ew, gross!"

"He stole Minori's first kiss!"

"Get the student council!"

 _I know_

The door slammed shut as Mob bolted out the room, out of the school. He hated this, hated everything about it. Living here. Being here.

 _I know_

He tumbled backwards on impact, a phone whacked into the road and crunched beneath the wheel of a passing car, knocked out of the hand of the passerby with whom he had collided. It was a tall, scruffy boy, but that tattoo on his neck...

It was the high school banchou.

"...Oh."

 _Mob_

"You have the money for that?"

Mob couldn't even speak, he shook so bad.

"No?"

The banchou stared down at him with honest-to-God murderous intent, but when Mob jumped to his feet and made a beeline for the crosswalk, the boy didn't pursue. Because, Mob realized as he reached the end of the path, this was an alleyway. They were in an alley.

The banchou's shadow fell down the dank pavement.

 _I'm sorry_

He kicked uselessly against the ground as the cord tightened around his neck. The hand on his face gripped hard at his mouth, and two fingers shoved up his nostrils.

 _This is just the way the world is_

He was caught between breaths, inside of them, like what he choked on was not a vacuum but some poisonous filler that posed as air, like his own thoughts turned against him and gagged him from the inside out.

 _We'll keep going as long as it takes_

The hand picked him up by his hair and slammed his head against the wall. A bit of blood flecked out his left ear while stars abruptly dotted his vision.

 _What will it take for you to understand?_

Time passed without meaning or feeling. There were bracelets of vertigo ebbing into soft licks of light, brush strokes pushing color fruitlessly across a pane of glass; he saw nothing because there _was_ nothing, for reality was nothing more than a dream that, by chance, had struck his subconscious fancy and was soon to be discarded.

But suddenly he could feel it, the coolness of the ground against his aching cheek, and then everything settled down, precipitating the knowledge of his body, the pain. Like a snowglobe recovering from an artificial storm, so did Mob's mind slowly tune to its senses once again.

He abstractly understood that footsteps were echoing down the alleyway, disappearing. It was quiet, and it seemed he was alone.

The sun was already setting, he could see. He needed to get back on his feet before nightfall.

"Hnng...!" he grunted as he braced his arms against the pavement.

 _Oh Mob_

Because if he didn't scrape himself up off the ground, then he wasn't going anywhere. No one would look for him. No one would help him. So he had to be the one to do it.

 _Poor Mob_

And yet, the ground was nice and balmy. Peaceful and quiet. He really didn't want to get up, to go face his problems and end up face-planted in the dirt again. No one was waiting for him, so why bother? Here was the same as there.

 _Dear Mob_

He didn't have to go home. He didn't have to go anywhere. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide...?

 _You have so much farther to go._

He can never remember these things.


End file.
